What happens across generations to random wealth shocks? Do they endure and even magnify, or do they dissipate? By implication, how much of modern wealth is attributable to events before 1900? This paper uses random shocks to family size in England before 1880, that created wealth shocks for the...

This paper studies the transmission of monetary policy to household consumption through wealth effects in a small open economy. As a natural experiment, we exploit the 2015 Swiss franc shock, triggered by the Swiss National Bank's unexpected removal of the euro exchange rate floor. Using...

We study households' response to the redistributive effects of inflation combining bank data with an information experiment during historic inflation. Households are generally well-informed about inflation and concerned about its wealth impact; yet, while knowledge about inflation eroding...

We study the redistributive effects of surprise inflation combining administrative bank data with an information provision experiment during an episode of historic inflation. On average, households are well-informed about prevailing inflation and are concerned about its impact on their wealth;...

We study the role of asset revaluation in the monetary transmission mechanism. We build an analytical heterogeneous-agents model with two main ingredients: i) rare disasters; ii) heterogeneous beliefs. The model captures time-varying risk premia and precautionary savings in a setting that nests...

We provide novel evidence about the incentive and welfare effects of an increase in the generosity of disability benefits. Importantly, a unique policy variation in Germany allows us to isolate the income effect of a change in benefit generosity. We leverage this quasi-experimental policy...